Greed Corp opens door to new franchise

My Horse and Me is probably the best known title by W!Games. I know that doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but surprisingly, that equestrian simulator sold 300,000 units.

That success has enabled W!Games to start their own franchise, but being a small studio, it’s starting out in the realm of downloadable content. The team has grand plans, but it’s starting off, experimenting with smaller games on Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStation Network and PC.

The first game in the Mistworld universe is Greed Corp. It introduces a continent that’s crumbling after different factions have mined the resources out of it. The destruction of land has become so intense that rifts erupt between the land and it separates the landmass into different factions: the Empire, the Cartel, the Pirates and the Freemen.

Each of them have their own motivations for controlling the world, but despite the dark themes of destruction, W!Games wants to make it beautiful enough so that it’s worth saving. That’s why the team creates a vibrant world inspired by a Miyazaki film.

Nikki Kuppens, the game’s designer, says Greed Corp is more like “a digital boardgame.” When I saw it, I immediately thought of board games turned DLC such as Settlers of Catan and Carcasonne.

The goal of the game is to use five units — walkers, harvesters, cannons, barracks and carriers — to destroy the opponent and take over their squares. Walkers are the soldiers that are used to conquer lands. Cannons are used for long range attacks but are vulnerable to close range assaults. Barracks creates more walkers. Carriers are one-time only units that move walkers from any part of the map to another. Lastly, harvesters mine the land at the risk of destroying it.

Yes, that’s the crux of the game and it forces players to confront each other. As the match progresses, the land disappears when cannon fire hits it or if harvesters continue to mine the area. Those same units can also self destruct eliminating everything around it. In addition, when those land tiles are eliminated, so are the units on it.

When it comes to actual battles, the side with the higher of number walkers usually win attacks. If the number of walkers are the same, it’s the attacker that wins and own the land, but they don’t have a walker to defend the tile. Each tile can only hold 16 walkers.

This makes the matches run quickly and cuts any chance of stalemate situations. An average game runs about 15 to 20 minutes, said Marco Van Haren, the game’s marketing manager. Speaking of multiplayer matches, players can engage in a variety of fights. They can go one on one or in an engage in three- or four-player free for alls.

Overall, there are 36 levels with 12 available at the beginning. As players progress through the campaign and play as each of the four factions, they’ll unlock 24 other maps.

As far as gameplay goes, there seems to be the potential for a lot of strategy. Players can use harvesters offensively or defensively to set off land tiles. They can save their resources to perform a quick strike attack using a carrier. They can even focus on cannon fire to eliminate a pound a foe so that the walkers can take over the weaker rival.

Those who are interested in Greed Corp. can expect it to hit the console services and PC in the first quarter of the year. It’s expected to sell for $10 or 800 Microsoft Points.